Before there was a natural hair movement with a name, there was a young actress, a pair of scissors, and a decision she made for a role — then refused to undo for America.
In the early 1960s, Cicely Tyson cut her straightened hair very short so it could return to its natural shape. She did it to play an African woman authentically. But when the role ended, Tyson didn’t rush back to the press and curl. She kept the short, natural style — and wore it on national television as Jane Foster, the secretary she played on CBS’s drama East Side/West Side (1963–64).
What viewers saw in 1963
Understand the landscape she walked into. In 1963, Black women on American television were scarce, and the unspoken rule for the few who appeared was straightened hair — hair that reassured the audience by imitating the standard. Tyson’s hair did the opposite. It was short. It was kinky-textured. It was hers.
That made her one of the first Black actresses to wear her natural hair on national TV — and, per the National Women’s History Museum, the first African American actress with a continuing role in a dramatic television series. Women watching at home saw it immediately for what it was: permission.
Tyson herself said it plainly, looking back on Oprah’s Master Class: “That is what created the natural hair craze.”
The correction this page owes you
This story gets told wrong all over the internet, so let’s set it straight here — literally. The viral version says Tyson wore cornrows on TV in 1963. She did not. The 1963 style was the short natural cut. Her famous cornrows came almost a decade later, for the film Sounder (1972), followed by the iconic Jet magazine cover in March 1973.
Two groundbreaking moments, two different hairstyles, nine years apart. Both are worth knowing. Merging them into one wrong date does justice to neither.
A career built on refusing to shrink
The hair was never just hair with Tyson. It was the first visible sign of the standard she kept for sixty years: she would play Black women with dignity, in their own image, or she would not play them at all. The short natural cut of 1963 and the cornrows of 1972 are the same statement in two styles — we do not have to straighten ourselves to be seen.
Every woman who has ever walked into a room wearing her hair exactly as it grows is, whether she knows it or not, downstream of a young actress who cut hers off for a role and then declined to apologize for it.
Join the conversation
Did you know the 1963 story was the short cut — not the cornrows? And who was the FIRST woman you ever saw on TV wearing her hair natural? Tell us below.
Source note: Cicely Tyson’s early-1960s decision to cut her straightened hair short and let it return to its natural shape, her keeping that style as Jane Foster on CBS’s East Side/West Side (1963–64), and her “That is what created the natural hair craze” remark on Oprah’s Master Class are documented by the National Women’s History Museum and reporting by MadameNoire and PopMatters, with January 2021 obituary coverage. The National Women’s History Museum credits Tyson as the first African American actress with a continuing role in a dramatic series; sources describe her as one of the first to wear natural hair on national television, and this article keeps that hedge. Her cornrows belong to Sounder (1972) and the March 1973 Jet cover — not 1963.
